The Picnic Bench
by Charmed-Triquetra
Summary: After Clark discovers the letter Chloe wrote in "Fever", he decides to tell her how he feels set after S8 episode "Instinct" Chlark romance


"_I may not be the one you love today, but I'll let you go for now... hoping that one day, you'll fly back to me."_

Clark read the concluding sentence over and over again. He feared that if he concentrated on the small black letters any harder, he might accidentally set the delicate pink paper alight and he'd lose it forever.

How long had he wanted Chloe to look into his eyes, her beautiful gaze grasping his, and say those words to him? When she gave him this note today, he couldn't believe his dumb luck that he was unconscious when she finally told him what he wanted to hear. And instead of replying with any degree of reciprocation, he'd said someone else's name.

He'd called out "Lana". He couldn't imagine how devastated she must have felt, pouring out her heart to him and have him confirm that he wanted someone else.

The truth was, he had barely been thinking about Lana at the time. He only vaguely remembered the stages of his semi-conscious delirium, but he was certain that he had been reliving the moments up to when he had collapsed: his mind trying to pinpoint what had caused his body to give up like that. It just so happened that he had been on the porch with Lana when his body managed to speak. And it just so happened that his body had picked the opportune moment to break his best friend's heart.

Just the mere thought of Chloe running out of the front door, her sweet innocent eyes flooding with tears, made him want to curl up under his bed and never come out. He never wanted to hurt her, and it pained him to know that she had been living with this memory for over five years. And the tragic part was that she never found out the truth. Even after everything they had been through- all the times they had become so close to being together and one of them backing out, all the times that their destiny and other people had got in the way. Not once had Clark told Chloe how he really felt about her.

But today was different. He was going to do it, and he was going to do it right. The way he should have done it.

Normally, there was some degree of warmness to the autumn Kansas sun… although Chloe had yet to figure out where it was. Somewhere between the thick layers of cloud hovering over Smallville High and the unnatural chemicals in the air that emitted from the Luthorcorp plant, she figured. God knows what Lex had been doing there before he disappeared, and it gave Chloe shivers thinking about what Tess Mercer may have begun to do there now.

Playing with her plastic engagement ring, Chloe looked at the building that had practically been her home for so many years. She thought about the hours she'd spent at the Torch, trying to uncover great stories in a vastly unremarkable environment, having verbal spars with Clark and Pete- both playful and real- and adding new articles and photos to her infamous Wall of Weird. Considering how her life had played out since then, Chloe looked back on her days at Smallville High with a certain fondness she never thought she'd have. But, back then, life was so much simpler- when her biggest problem was whether or not she exceeded the word limit on her English Lit paper or, in the worst case, a meteor infected student on a vendetta might try to kick her ass. Compared to the legions of Kryptonian and other alien criminals that had come after her and Clark and Lana since then, she would welcome a psychotic telekinetic with pleasure.

Looking back down to her ring, Chloe thought back to the first time she met Jimmy- back when they were both in high school and on an internship to the Planet. Back then, did she really think that this was going to be the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with? She tried to tell herself that things have changed since then, but she wasn't sure she believed herself.

Where was Clark, anyway? He had called her ages ago, with a strange tone in his voice, asking her to meet him near the picnic benches outside Smallville High. Not that Clark was that averse to making strange requests without explanation, but this one made her wildly curious.

A brief gust of wind broke her out of her many thoughts and caused her to shiver under her thin green jacket. She pulled it closer around her and turned to face the red and blue culprit,

"Clark, it's cold enough already!" She whined good naturedly. Clark grinned mischievously at her, making Chloe feel a slight twinge in her chest. She ignored it, noticing that Clark had a strange glimmer in his eyes… almost as though he was nervous about something. She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer to him,

"Clark? What's going on?"

There wasn't much point having a poker face when your best friend is a super-brain, Clark decided. The fact that she knew him better than anyone in this galaxy probably didn't do him any favours either. In any case, there was no turning back. He'd brought her here with minimal explanation and he knew that chickening out now and suggesting that they'd come here for nostalgia's sake before getting their usual caffeine jolt at the Talon wasn't going to cut the mustard. He swallowed nervously. There was no turning back. He had planned out his speech carefully, and he knew he had to give it a chance to be aired before it was too late.

"Chloe…" he started, trying his hardest not to let his crippling fear of rejection get the best of him, "do you know where we're standing?"

Chloe stared at him like he had lost his mind… perhaps he had,

"Yes…" she said slowly. "The picnic benches where you asked me to meet you. Why we're here, I have no ide-"

"This," Clark interrupted her before he lost his nerve, "was the exact spot where we first met." Frowning, Chloe looked behind Clark and soon the memory blossomed in her mind.

_She was 13 years old, in a new town and a new school. She had been incredibly annoyed with her dad for moving them to the middle of nowhere and wishing to be back within the heavy bustle of Metropolis.. She hadn't been looking forward to starting at the bottom of the social ladder once more… although the fact that she had been on greased rungs in her last school didn't escape her attention. As they walked around the school grounds, the principle rattled on about how she was lucky that she was getting such a good student to show her the ropes._

_Yeah, right. Chances were he was going to pair her up with some no-brained jock who had scored a couple touchdowns but couldn't find his way around a newspaper. However, her mind went blank when the principle stopped in front of two guys,_

"_Chloe Sullivan, this is Clark Kent. He'll be showing you around today. Clark, this is Chloe."_

_She was stunned by this Clark Kent. He seemed to have the good looks of a budding jock, but had an air of 'nerd' around him. He studied her with a nervous smile and promptly held out his hand as the principle went back into the building. Without missing a beat, Chloe shook his hand and sat herself down on the bench closest to her. Clark and his friend- who was wearing a yellow sweater with the name "Peter" stitched in red under the collar- followed suit and sat with her. Before Clark had the chance to say anything, Chloe blurted out the first thing she thought of before she ended up saying a bunch of gibberish and gave these guys the impression that she had the intelligence of a pea,_

"_Okay, the first thing I want to know is where I can get a copy of the Daily Planet. If I'm going to be stuck on an island, I'm going to need my only connection to civilisation."_

"I was so taken aback when you said that." Clark laughed to himself. Chloe smiled at the memory. She didn't want to think about what she had been really wanting to say to Clark that day. Blurting out "I love you" wouldn't have been the best way to begin a rapport with the tour guide. Even the idea of it made her cheeks heat up. She hoped Clark either wouldn't notice or would dismiss it as a reaction to the cold.

"My first thought after that was, 'does she really think Smallville is an island?'" Clark continued, shaking his head. Despite her secret embarrassment, Chloe laughed,

"Ah, that was because you hadn't been introduced to the world of metaphor." Chloe took a deep breath and felt her perspective shift from nostalgia to confusion. Her grin subsided slightly as she studied Clark again, "Clark, why this trip down memory lane? Has something happened?"

"No." Clark replied, "And that's the problem. Do you want to know why I remember that day so vividly?"

Raising her eyebrows, Chloe began to reply something along the lines of '_super-memory is now one of your abilities?'_ when Clark continued before she could articulate anything,

"It's because of what happened when I took you to the barn after school."

"When I kissed you." Chloe stated quietly, thinking back to the only truly memorable moment at the farm that day. It had been both of their first kisses, and she always looked back on it fondly- thinking that at least that was something the two of them shared that no one could take away, not even Lana Lang or Jimmy Olsen. She remembered saying something to him about knowing that he had wanted to kiss her, so she thought she'd get it out of the way so they could be friends.

"You know, you weren't wrong." Clark continued, almost as though he'd read her mind, "I had been thinking about kissing you all day. I was just too afraid to say it. I thought about kissing you the moment I saw you."

"You did?" Chloe's voice came out in a whisper, not sure where Clark was going with this.

"When you told me that we'll be friends afterwards, I wish I'd had the nerve to say something to you. To be honest, I wish I'd had the nerve to speak up so many times in the last eight years, but I never did."

Taking a deep breath, Clark leaned in towards Chloe as close as he could dare,

"I don't want to make that mistake anymore."

Before Chloe could say anything, Clark put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer and placing the gentlest of kisses on her lips. He moved his head back a fraction to gauge her reaction, not letting her go. She stared at him in pure unadulterated shock,

"Clark, I-"

"I love you, Chloe." Clark interrupted before Chloe could shoot him down. "I have for a long time. I've just… I've been too afraid to say anything."

"Clark," Chloe took on her no-nonsense tone, "I'm engaged and Lana's gone. Is this just a reaction to feeling alone?"

"No!" he replied sternly, "I mean, I love Lana. I miss her terribly. But I think that I became increasingly obsessed with her because I thought I'd never be with you. Focussing my feelings on Lana made it easier to be around you."

Chloe's face dropped, revealing all her vulnerability to him. He could tell that she had been longing to hear this for as long as he wanted to say it. Her eyes glistened with tears, but they didn't fall. She stood in silence for, what felt like, an eternity.

"I'm engaged." Is the only thing she could say.

"That's why I'm telling you this." Clark reasoned, "When you gave me that letter-"

"Clark, I wrote that over five years ago!" she exclaimed, her voice cracked slightly.

"When you gave me that letter," he repeated, "I realised that if I didn't do something now, I'd lose you forever. I wanted to let you know that you have a choice."

At last, the tears fell down her cheeks. Clark wasn't sure if he should reach out and wipe them away, or if that would be going too far. Before he had a chance to decide, Chloe pushed the largest one away and sniffed,

"Why couldn't you tell me this sooner?" Chloe stifled a sob as another tear rolled down her cheek. This time, Clark lifted his hand and placed it on her cheek, wiping it away with his thumb. Before he could apologise for being so late, Chloe launched onto her tiptoes and held Clark's face with both her hands, pulling him to her. Their lips met halfway, merging the two of them together with an urgency that had built up since the first time they stood at that bench. As they pressed their bodies together and murmured 'I love you' in their breaths, brief moments of their history flew through their minds: when they were under the influence of kryptonite, when they were undercover, the last kiss they shared when Zod came to Earth and, finally, their first kiss in the barn.

Suddenly, they were 13 again. The world was bright and open and they had their whole lives ahead of them. The only thing that mattered was how much they needed each other.

Yes, there would be some explaining needed for Jimmy and Lana, if she ever came back, but for now, the world consisted of Clark, Chloe and the picnic bench.


End file.
